When it comes to mastering model railroad operations, there’s nothing quite like learning by doing. The Operations Roadshow is a teaching tool that travels to train shows to introduce timetable and train order operation to others in the hobby.

The motorized wheel cleaner that we use in the Fiddle Yard on the Operations Road Show layout is a "Radreinigungsanlage" manufactured by LUX Modellbau. One of our guys found it in a hobby shop when he was in Germany on business.

It is a pair of felt-topped brass bars that oscillate out of sync with each other while a locomotive spins its wheels on top of them. We use it in conjunction with a Trix wheel cleaning brush, since the combination gives us better results than either one alone.

The Lux wheel cleaner (note that the web site is currently only available in German, but Google Chrome does a good job of translation) is not inexpensive, at about €150 (roughly $180US as I write this), but for as often as we use it, it has been worth it to us. I'm not certain how much they get for replacement felt strips, but when ours have gotten too dirty to use, we peel the felt off, then use double-sided tape to mount another strip of felt (cut from a sheet from a fabric store) in place.

The car boxes are, indeed, from Ikea. They were sold as lingerie boxes. We added foamboard inserts to make them usable as car storage boxes.

We bought a bunch of them around 2001, but they've since discontinued them.

One issue with them is that the drawers don't have stops to keep you from pulling them out all the way-- dumping a pile of underwear on the floor doesn't have quite as drastic consequences as dumping seven or eight freight cars. But once you know that, it's easy enough to avoid pulling out the drawers too far.

Excellent presentation and completely non-combative. It's tough to learn TT&TO through online discussions in which every question generates a flood of contradictory answers. I hope you do more videos on learning about this system and how crews make their decisions.